A celebration of poetry for the National Year of Reading 2012

Tag Archives: Winifred Tennant

Ask the sun; it has watched him pass—
A shadow mirrored on seas of glass;
Ask the stars that he knew so well
If they beheld where a bird-man fell.
Ask the wind that has blown with him
Over the edge of the ocean’s rim,
Far from the charted haunts of men,
To the utmost limits and back again.
Ask the clouds on the mountain height,
The echoes that followed him in his flight,
The thunder that prowls the midnight sky,
If a silvered ‘plane went riding by.

If the birds could talk, would they tell the fall
Of a god who winged above them all?
Of an eagle man, by the world’s decrees,
King of the blue immensities?

Source: The ABC Book of Australian Poetry: a treasury for young people compiled by Libby Hathorn (ABC Books 2010)